“I don’t know yet.” His jaw was hard, his muscles bulging with tension.
“That’s not very comforting.”
“I’m winging it here.” His eyes darted, checking the mirrors, sides, front, alert and ready for God only knew what. “Trust me. We needed to leave the base. And I’ll have a plan before anyone even knows we’re gone.”
“What about going to the police? If not here, then how about I place calls to some people I know from when I worked in the D.C. and Virginia area? I probably should have called them in the first place, but I cut so many ties when I left the search and rescue field…” She shook her head, frustrated with herself that she hadn’t thought of the cops and FBI agents she’d met during some of the more high-profile rescues. “Must have been subliminal, that I didn’t think of them. But if you let me use the cell, I can try.”
“Not now, Rachel.”
“Back to the OSI?” In all her multiteam collaborative efforts, she’d never worked directly with the OSI, but their reputation was top-notch. She scrambled for something, anything, her brain still half asleep, her body caught somewhere between that erotic dream and the harsh edge of her dangerous reality.
“Definitely not.”
They couldn’t even trust the OSI anymore? Okay, now she was really freaking out.
He drove through the dark and deserted streets. Fog rolled in off the water in a greedy vapor, sucking up the road from sight. It felt as if they were truly alone in the world. Cut off from any source of help.
“What happened back there at the house to tip you off? Why did we have to leave?”
“I would tell you if I could, but you just have to trust me. That’s why you chose to come to me for help, because you trust me.”
True enough. She knew that he would do anything… Anything at all? “Were you given permission to leave?”
He didn’t answer, which was an answer in itself. Their departure wasn’t officially sanctioned and Liam was protecting her by keeping her in the dark on the details.
How would this play out for him at work? Was he risking his career for her? She hadn’t even considered that possibility when coming to him for help. Bile burned her throat along with a hefty dose of self-loathing.
“Let’s call this whole thing off now.” She braced her palms on the dashboard. “I know nothing. You know nothing. Let Disco and me off at the next police station. You go back home and say I snuck away from the house.”
“Not gonna happen,” he said without missing a beat as he drove farther from base and the unconscious agent.
She hadn’t really expected him to go for it. Time for plan B, which probably wouldn’t work either, but she had to try.
At the next stoplight, Rachel reached for the door anyhow and yanked. No luck. He’d locked the doors. Of course he had.
“Damn it, Liam. This is crazy.” She pounded the door with a fist in frustration. “You can’t actually be kidnapping me.”
“I could. But I won’t need to.” He glanced over at her, his eyes intense. He slid a hand under her hair and caressed the back of her neck. “You’re a reasonable woman. You brought me into this because you were out of options. Now either you really trust me or you don’t. Which is it?”
She stared into his eyes long after the red light had gone green. But there wasn’t anyone on the road to honk or protest as they idled in the middle of the road. The strength in his gaze and gentleness of his touch worked together to remind her why she’d gone this route in the first place. As much as she hated to bring him into this mess, her mess, they were in it together now.
“I’m with you.”
He smiled. God, how he smiled in a way that creased the corners of his eyes and made her ache to kiss those crinkles. “Good. Because I would hate to have to knock you out, too.”
His words sunk in, icing the warmth in her belly.
“Too?”
He looked away and accelerated through the intersection. “You don’t need to know.”
Frustration stirred. She’d lived independently for all her adult life, and this kind of full-scale control did not sit well, even if he was trying to protect her. “If we’re in this together, how about we talk, rather than me asking questions that go unanswered. Tell me what I can know of your plan in progress.”
Steering off the highway, he drove over a narrow bridge. The moon reflected off the marshy water along the barrier island. “We’re going to see one of my team members before anyone sounds an alarm. We should have about an hour’s lead.”
Okay, that was something. Which team member would Liam choose to ask for help? She thought back to the other pararescuemen she’d met during their time in the Bahamas. The team member named Franco had been injured in the Bahamas and transferred out of the unit. So she moved on to… Cuervo, a charmer who wore marathon shirts and a smile. The guy they called Brick, because he was hardheaded but steady. Then there was Data, who’d managed to scrounge up electricity and an Internet connection before most of the specialists sent in. And an eerily quiet guy they’d simply called Bubbles…
They all seemed to have different strengths and she didn’t know any of them well enough to guess. She didn’t know any of them as well as she did Liam… a man she trusted more than anyone. She needed to keep that in mind.